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Released: Wednesday, June 30, 2010

LAKE CLEAR, N.Y. – The Adirondack Park’s largest environmental organization today announced it will present Adirondack Harvest with its “Conservationist of the Year” award for 2010, for promoting sustainable local farming.

The award will be presented by the Adirondack Council at its annual Forever Wild Day celebration on July 10 here, at Hohmeyer’s Lake Clear Lodge. Adirondack Harvest will receive a museum-quality, hand-carved common loon to commemorate the award.

Part of the celebration will be a 100-mile-lunch, in which all ingredients for the meal will come from 100 or fewer miles from Lake Clear and the Adirondack Council’s 35th annual members’ meeting

The featured speaker for lunch will be Aaron Woolf, director and producer of the award-winning film “King Corn.” Woolf is an advocate for sustainable agriculture and rural infrastructure.

“Sustainable farming is one of the essential elements of a healthy environment,” said Adirondack Council Executive Director Brian L. Houseal. “The more we can produce close to home, the less fuel we use in transporting food to consumers. This cuts our dependence on oil, improves air quality and decreases traffic.”

“It also frees the farmer to choose fruit and vegetable varieties for their flavor and nutritional value, rather than for how well they travel in a truck,” said Houseal. “Produce can be allowed to fully ripen, without worry that it will spoil en route to the store or the consumer. There is no need to wax produce skins to preserve them over a long voyage. And there is no significant loss of vitamins from sitting in a box for weeks before purchase.”

Dean Norton, President of the New York Farm Bureau, said: “I am exceptionally pleased to see Adirondack Harvest’s work recognized by the Adirondack Council. Adirondack Harvest is an excellent example of one of the finest traditions in the farming community – committed farmers pulling together to produce quality, fresh foods and developing a common marketing strategy. Adirondack Harvest’s goal is to connect local farmers with local consumers, and I applaud the Adirondack Council for recognizing the critical work of the local farming community,” said Norton.

The Council’s Houseal continued: “Adirondack Harvest recognized more than a decade ago that Adirondack residents were spending too much of their food budgets on gas and oil to import fruits and vegetables from far away, often of a quality that was inferior to what could be produced right here in the Park. By organizing farmers into regional markets, promoting local farm stands, and bringing the producer and consumer together, Adirondack Harvest has created a boom in direct-to-consumer sales in the Adirondacks. The result has been an improved quality of life for everyone involved.”

Adirondack Harvest maintains a database and map of all local farms that sell produce, which can be viewed online at www.adirondackharvest.com. There are more than 600 active farms in the Adirondack Park.

Sustainable local farming was highlighted by the Adirondack Council as a vital component of the Adirondack Park’s future, in the Council’s 2020 VISION Volume IV: Private Land Stewardship (2007).

The Council sees farms as a key ingredient in the Park’s remarkable biological diversity. They serve as a transition zone between more urban, developed areas and the “forever wild” Forest Preserve that surrounds them.

“Too many farms have disappeared from the Adirondack landscape,” Houseal said. “We need to continue to support local agriculture. Adirondack Harvest is showing us all how it can work.”

The Forever Wild Day celebration is sponsored by Finch Paper, Champlain Valley Conservation Partnership & Champlain Area Trails, Eastwood Litho, Inc., Integrated Marketing, Lyme Timber Company, Pearsall Financial Group at UBS, Rayonier, International Paper, Access Computer Technologies, Adirondack Creamery, Adirondack Dreams, Adirondack Museum, Champlain National Bank, Elk Lake Lodge, Law Office of William M. Finucane, Law Office of Marc S. Gerstman, Martindale Keysor & Company, CPAs, PLLC, Open Space Institute, Adirondack Harvest, Alpine Club of Canada-Montreal Section, Lost Pond Press, Dr. Robert H. Poe, The North Face, Black Diamond Equipment, Barbara Collum Decoration and Design, Lakeside Office Products, Depot Theatre, NCPR, Mountain Mugs, Hannaford Bros. Co., Pendragon Theatre, Arthur’s Greenhouses, Rivermede Farm, Loremans, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and Lowe’s.

Previous Conservationists of the Year include Governors George Pataki and Mario M. Cuomo; New York Times editor John Oakes; NYS Attorney General Dennis Vacco, NYS DEC Commissioner John P. Cahill; Senate EnCon Chairman Carl Marcellino, Assembly EnCon Chairman Richard Brodsky; Assembly En Con Chair Maurice Hinchey; Adirondack Park Agency Executive Director Robert Glennon; Adirondack activists including Peter Borrelli, the late Clarence Petty, the late Paul Schaefer and the late State Senator and Public Service Commission Chairman Harold Jerry.

The Adirondack Council is a privately funded, not-for-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the wild character and ecological integrity of New York’s 9,300-square-mile Adirondack Park. The Council carries out its mission through research, education, advocacy and legal action. Council members live in all 50 United States.